SURVIVING BIRTH : PADSICLES

on2014/072018/02

28

A perfectly sweet southern mother in law came into town a few days before her granddaughter was born. She was tidying up the soon-to-be new parents house, and began to put away some frozen items she had bought at the supermarket. She opened the freezer and was shocked to find feminine care products in bags, clogging up the freezer.

The mother in law carefully approached her pregnant daughter in law, wondering if pregnancy brain had truly taken over. She was convinced that if she were to look, she would find Ben and Jerry’s “Cherry Garcia” underneath the bathroom sink. When she asked her pregnant daughter in law what was in he freezer. The mom-to-be turned around with a smile and said, “Padsicles!” (This story is completely true btw – the names have been omitted to protect the innocent 🙂 )

I began making my own padsicles one night at our dining room table when I was 35 weeks pregnant. Tall Dad came home from work to find my supplies spread out everywhere. I was blasting Michael Giacchino’s beautiful LOST (season 6) soundtrack, carefully smothering gels and liquids all over menstrual pads.

He thought I had finally lost my mind. I had enough Aloe Vera gel and menstrual pads strewn about my apartment that I could’ve taken care of every female on spring break for the next decade. But, I hadn’t lost my mind.

In fact, what I was doing was brilliant. This padsicle concoction honestly made my afterbirth recovery quick and less painful.

Padsicles are the number one item I recommend to my pregnant friends. They are cheap, easy to assemble, and you make them when you are about 35 or 36 weeks pregnant. Padsicles are kept in your freezer, and are used when you return home from the hospital with your newborn baby.

When you have a newborn, you are a busy bee. You are feeding, changing diapers, swaddling, shushing, going to doctors appointments, fitting in visits from family and friends….oh, let’s not forget those minor details of *hopefully* sleeping and eating.

As such, I truly believe in simple, yet effective, preparation for a newborn baby. Tall Dad always says, “less is more.” Much to my chagrin – he’s actually right. I recommend only a few items for your maternity hospital bag, having a short list for newborn necessities, and stocking up a new mom-to-be with proper medicine, feminine care products, as well as fun snacks for those midnight feeding sessions.

A new mom doesn’t have time to worry about the mess of afterbirth, (aka – your biggest period ever.) New moms also aren’t allowed to wear tampons for a while, so they should stock up on super efficient overnight pads – like Stayfree Overnight – which you can pick up at your local Walmart. (Get a $5 Walmart eGift card reward when you buy any 3 products- Stayfree, Carefree, or o.b. (all details can be found at this link: http://www.drvsusa.com/keepmoving/)

Want to know how to make these padsicles? You’re in the right spot. Read on, my friend:

I like to use overnight pads to make padsicles. You will also need some aloe vera, witch hazel, and gallon sized ziplock bag. Grab a baking dish (to keep your table from getting yucky with aloe vera and witch hazel) and a spoon. Alright – let’s make some padsicles!

1. Unwrap the pad, keeping the stickers and adhesive intact.

2. Place pad inside your dish.

(this is in case you are messy like me and don’t want to make a mess on your table)

3. Add a liberal amount of Aloe Vera.

4. Smother the aloe vera with your spoon.

Remember, tearing can happen so make sure to put aloe vera all over that pad!

5. Add a few tablespoons of Witch Hazel and smush that into the mixture with your spoon just like you did before.

side note: I wish this could look prettier. Menstrual pads covered in green goo aren’t terribly pretty to look at. Pinterest might like it better if it had glitter and was pretty, but alas, we need to keep things simple here folks.

6. Carefully fold the pad back up and place it back into the package.

7. Now keep doing this process until you have several padsicles made.

Put them into a gallon sized freezer bag. I can fit 24 padsicles in a bag!

8. All you need to do from here is make some room in your freezer and let these freeze.

Take them out, one at a time, when you get home from giving birth. Wear like you would with a regular pad. These will just feel like the most heavenly pads in the world.

If your friend is pregnant and hasn’t made padsicles yet, please be sure to share this page with her. Maybe the two of you can do it as an arts and crafts night together.

Okay, it isn’t really artsy, but she will totally thank you in the end.

28 comments

My daughter is due in September, I would of loved these. I loved my.. I can't remember what they were but they were little round thingys that were cool. Tucts or something like that. I will make these for my daughter!

Living in a house full of women, I thought I'd seen everything. Obviously not. Let me just say that this is BRILLIANT! That is some first class ingenuity if I ever saw any. I have a good friend with two kids who could have used this on both go arounds.

OMG what an awesome idea.. where were you 19 years ago when I needed these…?? Soo gonna share with my friends and Mommy's this is a MUST have for every new mom.. Love it.. thanks for sharing to amazing idea

I mean, this might be the most genius thing EVER. This might be way TMI, but here goes: When I had Grady, I was Group B Strep positive. We took all the necessary precautions with antibiotics before labor and all that fun stuff. Unfortunately, I got Endometritis about 10 days later. Basically, the lining of your uterus gets infected and it can be fatal. Apparently I caught it early, and by early I mean my crotch smelled like a dead deer in the middle of August and I called my doctor because gross. My doc said I got really lucky by catching it early and that most women let it go for too long. Like WHAT?! Because smelling like that TOTALLY normal, right? Um, not for me. So anyways, All that to say, I wonder if I had had padsicles and the wonderful witch hazel down there, if I would have escaped the dead deer-smelling nether regions. Now that I've said too much, I'll just depart with this thought: Thank goodness for Stayfree because nobody does it better. #client

Have made them, have used them, and have also made nipple pads out of the same stuff which I use daily for a couple of hours before my daily bath (just to make sure the witchhazel is off) and between that and a little Vaseline based lip balm I've been able to avoid the super-expensive lanolin creams (which made my last baby colic-y) – such an awesome post!

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Hi, I'm Mary

I'm a musician, educator, TV personality, wife, blogger, podcaster and, most importantly, the mother of two beautiful children. I love empowering women with make up and skincare, movies, music, laughter, Harry Potter and letterboxing.